


Mou Hitori Janai Yo

by MystiaKatsuragi



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gift Fic, Honoka is suffering, Huge Focus on Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MystiaKatsuragi/pseuds/MystiaKatsuragi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honoka pretends to be happy, but she can only pretend for so long before her friends notice something is wrong. Gift fic for a friend who wanted to read Honoka angst. Based on the song with the same title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mou Hitori Janai Yo

**Author's Note:**

> I would not recommend reading this story (or at least the first chapter) if you are feeling sad, unless you are looking for something to relate to.

Honoka was having a hard time smiling today.

Every time she tried to smile, there was a painful throbbing in her chest, as if the fabric of her dress was constricting her breathing. But that wasn’t the case, because Kotori made this dress, and Honoka’s breasts hadn’t gotten bigger since the last time her three sizes were measured, so the dress fit perfectly. If her clothes being too tight wasn’t the problem, then why couldn’t she smile without her chest hurting?

She already knew the answer to that question, but feigning ignorance allowed Honoka to avoid admitting that she was feeling sad.

There was no reason for her to be sad, she told herself. There were so many things in her life that brought her happiness, and there was nothing that should have prevented her from staying in high spirits, except for one small thing.

After considering her current circumstances, Honoka decided there could only be one explanation for her sadness. It didn’t seem like a very good reason, considering how she was friends with everyone in  μ's . It was such a small thing, and she felt silly for feeling lonely. She was surrounded by eight girls who cared deeply about her...but all of them were closer to each other than they were to her.

Although she respected the president and vice president , she had never been particularly close to either of them. She was fascinated by Nozomi’s fortune telling and Eli’s ballet, but she didn’t share those interests. Even after she started shadowing Nozomi and Eli in preparation to join the student council after they graduated, she didn’t feel like her friendships with them had strengthened at all. She felt like the friendships weakened a little when she finally picked up on the fact that the two were dating, at which point she realized that she was more isolated from their interactions than she initially thought. Nozomi and Eli were about to graduate anyways, so when they eventually left Otonokizaka, Honoka would have to stay behind, probably as the new president of the student council.

The other girl who was about to graduate--assuming she didn’t fail her classes--had more in common with Honoka than Nozomi and Eli did. Nico was a little arrogant and extremely stubborn, yet Honoka admired her tenacity as well as her passion for school idols. However, Nico was too busy taking care of her siblings to spend a lot of time with anyone else outside of their practices, so she couldn’t really be there for the orange-haired girl, even if she didn’t prefer spending her free time with the red-haired member of μ's.

Maki was a brilliant student and had the most musical talent out of the nine students in their school idol group. She contributed far more to the group than necessary, providing annotated scores for their songs and playing the piano to accompany their lyrics when they worked on a song without her in it. When Honoka had trouble understanding something she learned in class, Maki would help her make sense of the material, regardless of whether or not she had personally studied it before. But she was totally tsundere, so it was difficult for her to show affection, which Honoka regularly needed in a close relationship, although she was a little more affectionate toward Nico and the other two first years.

Rin and Hanayo had been close since they were children, and they shared a special relationship that Honoka couldn’t be a part of. Even when she and Rin worked on a duet together--a more passionate version of “Mermaid Festa”--the younger girl treated Honoka like a louder Hanayo and at one point, albeit on accident, called her by her girlfriend’s nickname. Hanayo, who was a member of the Printemps subunit and therefore worked with the orange-haired girl more often than Rin, treated her with the same kindness she gave to everyone else in μ's. Her shy personality made it harder for Honoka to start conversations with and therefore get closer to her, but she was less reserved around the third member of Printemps, with whom she had a lot more in common.

Kotori, who was Honoka’s childhood friend, had been with Honoka for the longest, and Honoka thought the two were best friends. They did almost everything together, from going to Otonokizaka to forming a school idol group to being in the same subunit, and Kotori made all of their costumes, so she had to like Honoka a lot if she was willing to devote the majority of her time and resources to μ's. But Honoka realized they weren’t as close as she thought when Kotori’s job at the maid cafe in Akihabara, which she kept a secret from not only Honoka but also everyone else in μ's, was discovered. Additionally, on the two occasions when the girls broke into pairs, rather than singing with Honoka, Kotori chose someone else as her partner; Hanayo sang with her for their first duet, which left Honoka with Rin, and “Anemone Heart” was performed with their fellow childhood friend.

If Kotori wasn’t her best friend, then that spot must be filled by Umi, Honoka tried to convince herself. Umi was a driving force in the creation and continued existence of  μ's; she  wrote most of the lyrics for their songs, and she took command of most of their practices, making sure the girls were always in sync. Although the blue-haired girl scolded her orange-haired friend a lot, particularly when Honoka made bad decisions concerning  μ's,  she assumed it was because she was the center of Honoka’s attention, a belief that was further reinforced every time Umi suggested for Honoka to be the center for  their new song . However, Umi was more strict with Honoka than any other member of the group, and she didn’t put as much pressure on them to practice their singing and dancing as she did with Honoka. It was as if she didn’t trust Honoka, as if she thought the orange-haired girl wouldn’t expend any effort if she didn’t devote so much attention to her, like a parent who wouldn’t allow their child to do anything without their supervision.

Maybe she just wanted to be watched all of the time, she told herself. Maybe she just wanted someone to keep their eyes on her and look only at her. Maybe she wouldn’t be sad if she was closer to one of the members of  μ's, if one of them started a special relationship with her. Maybe she would be happier if they were as devoted to her as they already were to someone else. Maybe she wouldn’t have a hard time smiling if she was dating one of the other girls, if she paid attention to a specific person, if she could concentrate on making them as happy as she wished she could be.

There was no point in wondering about what could be, though, because she couldn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone in μ's. All of her friends were already devoted to one of the other members, and they concentrated the most on that person, which left less attention for Honoka. But they were happy together--Nozomi and Eli, Hanayo and Rin, Maki and Nico, Kotori and Umi--and she didn’t want to be happy if it meant making her friends unhappy. Honoka loved her friends and wouldn’t wish her sadness on any of them, so she continued to feign ignorance. She could pretend to be happy if she put as much effort into it as she did with her singing and dancing, so she started practiced pretending.

She pretended the painful throbbing in her chest was caused by her clothes being too tight. She pretended the many things in her life that brought her happiness could keep her in high spirits. She pretended not to be lonely while she sang and danced with her school idol group. She pretended not to be lonely every time she watched her friends interact with each other, rather than interacting with her. She pretended there was no explanation for why it was becoming harder for her to smile.

Honoka pretended to be happy, despite the feeling of sadness that constricted her breathing and enveloped her entire being whenever she was alone, because she didn’t want her friends to be as sad as she was. It was silly for her to feel sad, and therefore there wasn’t a problem, she told herself. But she could only pretend there wasn’t a problem for so long before the eight girls who cared so deeply about her noticed something was wrong, and she could no longer avoid admitting that it wasn’t such a small thing after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Honoka as having a depressive disorder. This particular fic highlights how I imagine Honoka felt sometime after the members of μ's are split into subunits. Timeline-wise, it's concurrent with the story around "SUNNY DAY SONG" in the game, which will become obvious at the beginning of the next chapter. : ' )
> 
> Anyways, I like happy endings, so the next/last chapter will contain a lot of comforting from the other girls and will put Honoka into the mindset that she has when she sings "Mou Hitori Janai Yo." (I don't like how KLAB converted the title into the English version, but there are many things I don't like about KLAB.)


End file.
